


Second's Not The Same

by GrowlingPeanut



Category: Borderlands, Tales from the Borderlands - Fandom
Genre: Cheating in favor of the pairing?, F/M, Post-Game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-05
Updated: 2015-12-05
Packaged: 2018-05-05 02:51:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5358239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrowlingPeanut/pseuds/GrowlingPeanut
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fiona wasn't ready to hear him say it. Even though she knew it was coming. They'd grown so close during that whole ordeal, it was only natural for him to want to take it a step further. But it wouldn't have worked. She was a Vault Hunter, and he was the CEO of Atlas. Their lives would take them in separate directions. That's what she told herself, anyway. So they went on with their lives. Apart from each other, but not alone.</p>
<p>When she meets him years later, she doesn't expect to regret the decisions she'd made. But her answer had been final enough for him. He's moved on. She hasn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Second's Not The Same

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by (and includes sections from) the song "Is There Somewhere" by Halsey. I strongly recommend you go listen to it. It's beautiful and bittersweet.

It’s been years.  
She’s missed him. She says this openly.  
She has to fight back a stab of jealousy when she sees the simple golden band glinting on his finger.  
...she _doesn’t_ say this.  
“Seems like Atlas is treating you well.”

He nods, tipping back the rest of the drink in his hand.  
“Hasn’t been easy, but...what ever is, right?”  
He smiles.

It’s a goofy little lopsided thing; mostly lips, just a hint of perfect white teeth.  
It makes her heart beat faster and she decides to lose herself in her cocktail.  
Anything to avoid looking at him.  
To avoid _feeling_ something.

“How about you? Any Vaults worth mentioning?”

She smiles into the brightly-colored drink on the bar in front of her. “It’s more waiting and following false leads than anything else.”

“Well, they don’t call it Vault _hunting_ for no reason.”  
He smiles again, wider this time.

It’s more of a grin, really.  
He still looks so boyish, and she finds herself wishing she felt as young as he looks in that moment.

“But you...you’re doing alright? The rest of the team’s treating you okay?”

She feels a lump rise in her throat.  
Hearing that concern.  
Knowing he still cares.  
Pushing down everything but a smile, she nods.  
“They’re treating me like family.”  
The answer is honest.  
Which is why it chokes her up.  
Lilith, Axton, Gaige, Mordecai, all of them, even Krieg and Salvador; they’ve _become_ her family.  
They’re the people she’ll fight and die alongside.  
They’re the people she’ll spend the rest of her life with.

_Even though it could have been him._  
She can’t keep herself from looking at the ring on his finger again.  
It’s such an innocent thing.  
Just a plain band of metal.  
But it somehow carves out a hollow space in the pit of her stomach.

His words.  
Before the Vault.  
 _I’m interested in someone else._  
She knew what that had meant.  
But she hadn’t been ready.  
She’d been too eager to start her life. Her new life.

And she’d missed her chance.  
And he’d moved on.  
To...  
 _...someone else._

Warm fingers on her arm jolt her out of her regrets.  
Warm...all except for the ring.  
The ring is icy against her skin.  
She has to fight with every muscle in her body to keep herself from pulling away.

“You sure you’re alright, Fi?”

_Fi._  
It sounds like something out of a dream.  
Sure, the others use this nickname.  
But none of them say it quite the same way he does.  
She can’t look at him. She doesn’t want to see his face.  
It feels like she’s hit rock bottom already, but she knows that if she looks up, into his eyes, she’ll be able to fall even further.

“You know you can tell me, right?”

Something strangely foreign starts welling up inside her, boiling in her blood.  
Sadness.  
Anger.  
Nostalgia.  
...hope.  
She doesn’t know whether to punch him or cry.  
Or both.  
So she just sits there, silent, wrestling with this unwelcome chimera of emotion.

She can feel him rubbing his thumb against her arm.  
She can imagine the expression on his face.  
So she still doesn’t look at him.  
She knows she won’t be able to hold back whatever’s trying to spill over if she does.  
Those mismatched eyes were always able to say more than his words ever could.  
And if his words _alone_ were tearing her apart...  
She didn’t want to think about what his eyes would do.

“Fi, talk to me. Something’s wrong.”  
His voice is soft.  
So soft.  
Gentle.

And something clicks inside her.  
That bubbling feeling suddenly cements itself, dropping heavily into her gut.  
It’s the weight of realization.  
She knows what this is.  
It’s love.

And that’s when she looks at him.

**********************

_“You were dancing in your tube socks in our hotel room…_  
 _Flashing those eyes like highway signs._  
 _...rest your head upon my shoulder, just wanna feel your lips against my skin...”_

_“...And I promised myself I wouldn’t let you...complete me._   
_I’m tryin’ not to let it show, that I don’t wanna let this go._   
_Is there somewhere you can meet me?_   
_Cause I clutched your arms like stairway railings…_   
_And you clutched my brain...and eased my ailing.”_

***********************

“So...who is she?”  
Fiona nods to the ring.  
It’s sitting on the nightstand.  
Next to the bed.  
She wants to cover it with something.  
A pang of guilt slices through her.

He sighs and presses a kiss to her collar bone.  
“Is now _really_ the time?”

No. It’s not.  
But she can’t just let it go.  
The last hour had been a beautiful distraction.  
She’d actually _liked_ seeing his ECHO-eye glimmer online as she slipped out of her dress.  
The dress she’d bought specifically for this meeting.  
The dress that now lay crumpled on the floor at the foot of the bed.

The soft sheets.  
His warm body.  
How everything just came so _naturally_ to them.  
How they’d fit so perfectly in each others’ curves.  
But she knows it’s going to be the last time as well as the first.

She needs something to remind her that they _shouldn’t be here._  
Not like this.  
He isn’t hers to have.  
Not anymore.  
“Not telling me won’t make it any easier.”

He’s silent and she knows he’s studying her face.  
She just leans against his shoulder, tracing the tattoos across his chest.  
Memorizing him.  
Just in case it’s the last time she ever sees him again.

“We met about two years ago.” He begins quietly. “Through Atlas. It started as a...collaboration. On some weapon designs.”

Fiona swallows the sour taste in the back of her throat.  
 _Collaboration._  
 _Thrown together and forced to work as a team._  
It sounds too familiar.

“She and I had similar ideas. We liked working together. Started going out for coffee. Off-the-clock meetings turned into...”

She closes her eyes as he trails off.  
This hurts a lot more than she’d expected it to.  
 _Is she anything like me?_ she wants to ask.  
But she keeps her mouth shut because she doesn’t know what will come out if she opens it.

“I...waited for you, you know. Year after year, but you never...”  
He breathes out a shaky sigh and runs a hand through his hair.  
“I wish I could say I’m sorry.”

But he’s not.  
And that’s all she needs to know.  
That’s all she needs to tell her that it was her fault.  
Her fault for resisting.  
Her fault for waiting.  
Waiting so long that his hope ran out and he...gave up.

The silence that follows lasts for several long minutes.  
Eventually, he kisses the top of her head.  
She swallows, hoping that when she speaks, her voice won’t betray her emotion.  
“I should be the one apologizing. You...meant what you said.”  
She knows she doesn’t have to specify.

“I did.”  
His breath whispers through her hair.  
“And, if we’re being honest...”

She finally looks up, placing a finger across his lips.  
It’s hard to force a smile with the tears burning behind her eyes, but she does it anyway.  
“Just don’t say it, Rhys. It’s better if you don’t.”  
 _Because those words won’t change the fact that you’re going to be waking up with someone else for the rest of your life._

**********************

_“Your girl’s got red in her cheeks, cause we’re somethin’ she can’t see._  
 _And I try to refrain...but you’re stuck in my brain,_  
 _And all I do is cry and complain…_  
 _Because second’s not the same.”_

_“I’m sorry but I fell in love tonight…_   
_I didn’t mean to fall in love tonight…_   
_You’re lookin’ like you fell in love tonight…_   
_...Can we pretend that we’re in love?”_


End file.
